Easy drilling of shelf-pin holes, but a bit of a hassel

I needed to drill shelf pin holes for my closet remodel project. To save time I decided to purchase the woodhaven shelf pin jig and a self-centering shelf pin bit. At the local woodcraft, the only 1/4” option was this Snappy bit.

It got the job done, but was a bit of a pain. The first side I drilled went rather smoothly, and I ran down the two lines in decent time. However, when I got to the second side of the shelf unit, the shavings kept getting clogged in the retracting self-centering part of the bit. So after every hole I drilled, I had to turn the drill press off and push the retractable part up and down to unclogged the shavings (this was all with Walnut). This probably caused me to spend 5 times the necessary amount of time on this part of the project. Additionally, the holes weren’t exactly smooth, the edges were pretty rough in spots.

So while this bit certainly got the job done, I would probably not purchase this brand again, instead opting to try a different brand to see if maybe others didn’t clog as much.

Perhaps I was doing something incorrectly, but I hope not since there really aren’t many ways to operate this bit differently. If anyone has had this problem and solved it, I’d love to hear about it.

Update 2/2/10: I ended up submitting a custom support form from the manufacturer and received this response. I’ll give it a try and report back.

“When the nose bushing gets stuck the first time you should unscrew the knurled barrel from the hex shank and clean out the inside of the barrel and nose bushing and then re-assemble. If it gets stuck every time then you do have a defective unit and I will replace it. Please let me know.”

5 comments so far

Me too. I bought a similar one (5mm bit) from Lee Valley, and drilling birch ply it clogs up after ~ 3 holes. Somehow the sawdust just get packed in the bit’s flutes. I would like to hear how other guys get around that also.